Saturday, April 19, 2008

BOLC II - Week 2 - Day 5

0400.... The line from "Good Morning Vietnam" is never more appropriate.... what does the 0 stand for? "Oh MY GOD it's EARLY!" Even going to bed at ten-ish doesn't make it any better. I was basically yawning all day. I think I have seen more 0400 bedtimes than wakeups in my life, its just NOT natural for me as a person who wakes up at 7ish every day.

Ruck was quick and painless once we got started. We did 5 miles in 1:20, which when you factor in a short break at the 2.5 mile point was basically a 15 minute mile (faster than a certain segment in this country can "run", let alone walk with a 30lb rucksack, rifle (another 8 lbs or so), water (another 5-10lbs, maybe more if you had everything (camelback, 2 1qt canteens and a 2qt canteen)). After everyone got cleaned up and had breakfast we then went off to classes. Classes today of course focused on the M4, the M68 CCO, PEQ-15/2 laser and on NOD's. Mainly how to use equipment to calibrate this equipment for use on the range. I actually have a PEQ-15, some people have a PEQ-2, which is kind of cool since it actually emits a visible laser in the daylight (the PEQ-2 just does an IR laser at night). Kind of neat to have a laser on my rifle.

Our Gear. The PEQ-15 is the laser on the front of the M4, the CCO Sight is of course in the center and the NOD is mounted on the helmet.

Boresighting the weapons. Basicially its a very involved process that involves sticking a laser down the barel of the rifle and the making sure that the aiming points line up correctly. Sounds easier than it is.

After boresighting the weapons we then went on to the eternal Army task, paperwork where we inspected our gear and noted deficiencies and then marked them up on the infamous DD 2204. We then returned to the company are (around 1600) and waited around for our guest speaker. Colonel (Retired) Tex Turner who is a Vietnam veteran and gave a pretty good speech on the on the his experiences and what we should be doing when we take leadership. Pretty good. Following that we had a weapons turn in and then we done except for a few admin tasks (we change our student leadership every Friday so we had to wait until that was done.)

NOTE - There are certain specific details that I am omitting on purpose as I feel they present an OPSEC (Operational Security) issue if discussed on the web. As a security professional in the civilian world and as someone tasked with that responsibility in the military as well I strive to be as careful as I can be about anything sensative (almost everything here isn't but certain items, such as how weapons and equipment are stored are carefully ommitted).